


the songs i used to know

by void_fish



Category: Hockey RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:12:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_fish/pseuds/void_fish
Summary: The first time Alex meets Patrick, he’s covered in blood. It’s not the most auspicious start.A Call Me By Your Name AU





	the songs i used to know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stonesnuggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonesnuggler/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [stonesnuggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonesnuggler/pseuds/stonesnuggler) in the [PuckingRare2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2018) collection. 



> i want to say that ria made me do it, but lbr, i did this all on my own.
> 
> i've tagged this fic with underage because alex is seventeen in it, but is fully consenting at all times. all warnings are as such with the original text.
> 
> this was supposed to be for pucking rare but i'm useless and work is hell, so it's a little late. i hope you enjoy it anyway!

The first time Alex meets Patrick, he’s covered in blood. It’s not the most auspicious start.

Alex gets nosebleeds a lot. Less so when he and his family are in Sicily for the summer, but still every couple of weeks or so.

He’s clearing his room of anything potentially incriminating; his father’s guest will be arriving later that morning, and he’s to stay in Alex’s room. He feels it before anything else, that telltale release of pressure that immediately precedes the small gush of blood down his chin and bare chest.

“Fuck,” he says to himself, grabbing the first thing he can find to staunch the flow: the shirt he was about to put on to greet their visitor.

He makes it to the kitchen for ice just in time to hear a car pull up, and there, through the wide open door, he sees him.

Patrick Sharp has thick, gently curling dark hair and a smile that says “if you don’t love me yet, you will soon”. He’s wearing thin, pale, cotton clothes, designed to stay cool in the hot Italian weather, and sunglasses, surprisingly modern considering the old fashioned suitcase he takes out of the trunk. He kisses Alex’ mother on each cheek, and embraces his father like a brother.

Alex thinks about trying to make his escape, getting cleaned up and putting a shirt on, when his father notices him.

“Alex!” he says. “Come, greet our guest!”

Alex is holding a balled up shirt filled with ice to his nose and has rapidly drying blood on his chest. He freezes, eyes darting between his father and their visitor.

“Hi,” he says, nasal, awkward. “Dad, can I—?”

It’s like his father notices for the first time that his nose is bleeding. “Oh,” he says, alarmed. “Oh, of course, go clean yourself up.”

Alex takes another glance at their guest. He looks worried, behind his sunglasses. Alex offers him a lopsided smile, and darts back into the house to wash the blood off. As he heads for the bathroom, he hears his father tell their guest that it’s fine, it happens all the time.

His nose has mostly stopped by the time he’s in the bathroom, and he carefully cleans his face and wipes his chest off. He puts a clean, dry shirt on and brings the bloody one downstairs for Rosa to clean.

His parents are outside on the patio with their guest, drinking tall glasses of the apricot juice that Rosa makes every morning. He can see the condensation beading on the glasses. He slides into the last free seat, next to the guest, and helps himself to a glass of juice.

“You must be Alex,” the guest says. He’s taken his sunglasses off, and when Alex looks at him, he’s made speechless by how piercingly green his eyes are.

“That’s me,” Alex says, shaking his hand.

“I’m Patrick,” he says, offering him a smile that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle.

“The English professor from Chicago,” Alex says. “Dad talks about you a lot.”

Patrick laughs, throwing his head back. “That’s me,” he says. “My reputation precedes me, huh?”

“Guess so,” Alex says, and drains his glass. He can feel Patrick’s eyes on him and doesn’t know why. He picks up a handful of raspberries from the bowl in the table and starts throwing them into his mouth, one by one. They burst easily between his teeth, bitter-sweet juice sliding down his throat. There are a lot of good things about the summers in Sicily, but the orchard is definitely one of them. Peaches, raspberries, apricots, lemons. They grow most fruits on their land and sell the excess in town.

He looks at his mother. “How long until dinner?”

“A few hours yet,” she says. “It’s still early.”

He gets up from the table, cramming the last few raspberries from his palm in his mouth. He feels the sticky juice beading at the corner of his mouth and wipes it with his hand. “I’m taking Bianca out.”

Bianca is an enormous white mare that’s been here almost as long as Alex can remember. The stable hands joke that she’s going to outlive them all.

“Take Patrick with you,” his father says. “You can show him the property. Have you ridden before?” The last is directed at Patrick, who’s wiping nectarine juice off his fingers with a pristine handkerchief.

Patrick shakes his head. He arches an eyebrow up at Alex. “I’m sure Alex will take good care of me,” he says, and places the balled up handkerchief on his empty plate.

-

“I never realised how beautiful Italy was,” Patrick says, from the back of the gentlest horse they have, Damien. He’s clinging to the reins a little tight, but has thus far avoided spooking him.

Patrick had suggested just riding behind Alex on Bianca, she’s certainly strong enough to hold both their weight, but Alex didn’t know how much he’d be able to concentrate with Patrick draped warmly over his back. He’d already thrown a friendly arm over Alex’ shoulder on the walk to the stables, made easy by the fact that he’s six inches taller than Alex.

“Very beautiful,” Alex agrees. “I should take you to the ocean this summer.”

Patrick sighs happily. “I haven’t seen the ocean in— oh, I don’t even know how long, unless you count from the airplane window.”

An image flashes into Alex’ mind suddenly of Patrick sprawled out in the sand, shirt folded neatly into a pillow. His back and shoulders are sprinkled liberally with freckles. Alex has never seen anything more beautiful.

He blinks and he’s back in the apple trees. Bianca knows this place well enough that she could walk it blindfolded, luckily, and he thinks his momentary daydream has gone unnoticed by Patrick until he glances over to Patrick watching him, curious. To distract, Alex reaches up, picks an apple, almost ready to fall by itself, and tosses it the short distance between them. It’s the perfect shade of red, and Alex can already hear the crunch of sharp flesh.

“You won’t get a sweeter apple anywhere,” Alex tells him, picking one for himself.

He waits for the crunch. It doesn’t come. When he glances over again, Patrick has slowed Damien to a stop and is just watching Alex standing up in the saddle, straining for an apple. Alex can feel a gentle breeze on his midsection that means his shirt has ridden up, but with Patrick’s sunglasses on, Alex can’t figure out where exactly he’s looking.

“Finish that before we get back to the house,” he says. “Rosa will kill me if she thinks I’ve spoiled your appetite.”

-

After dinner, the temperature drops, and they head inside. Alex’s parents are merry enough on wine that they just shake their heads when he lights up a cigarette, sitting down on the piano bench. His lighter sparks but won’t light, and he pats his pockets for matches when a small flame appears in front of him, lighting the cigarette. Patrick has finally taken his sunglasses off to retire inside, and his green eyes dance in the light.

“Do you play?” he asks, nodding at the piano and lighting his own.

Alex hasn’t even finished inhaling his first drag before his parents are both chiming in for him. “He’s _wonderful_ ,” his mother says.

“Play something for Patrick,” his father says.

Alex sighs, clamps his cigarette between his teeth and spins in his seat.

He starts off slow, picking out notes and getting faster by increments until his fingers are flying across the keys. He throws a look over to where Patrick is sitting, just behind his left shoulder, and grins.

There’s applause when he’s done, and he stands up and does a mock bow before flicking ash into the ashtray on top of the piano, flopping onto the couch opposite Patrick.

Patrick tips an imaginary hat to him, and winks. Alex feels his ears heat, but holds his gaze, smirking a little and blowing a smoke ring.

“Multitalented,” Patrick says, voice low so his parents can’t hear. “What else can you do?”

Alex, emboldened by the applause and the stolen beer he’s been nursing since dinner, winks at him. Patrick looks surprised, but a smile plays at the corner of his mouth. In a moment of weakness, Alex imagines kissing it.

He doesn’t allow himself to imagine more until he’s gone to his room for the night.

-

The next day, they swim in the lake. Alex is skinny with youth, prominent hip bones and he feels like he’s all elbows and knees. His Sicily tan is about the only thing that saves him. Patrick, though.

Patrick has been in Italy for less than a week and is already the perfect shade of golden brown. His dark hair has streaks of chestnut in, bleached from the sun. He’s broad shouldered, skin taut over muscles, and he has a tattoo in the hollow of his hip of a sunflower, drawn simply but beautifully.

“A past life,” he says, when he catches Alex staring at it.

“A past girlfriend?” Alex asks, toeing his sneakers off to dig his feet into the damp, sun-warm sand.

“Something like that,” Patrick says, and folds his shirt neatly, leaving it in a stack with his shoes and shorts.

The water is cool, like it always is at this time of day, and Alex luxuriates in it, swimming out to the point where he can’t touch the lake floor and floating on his back, arms by his side, chin tipped up towards the sky.

Patrick does lengths, powerful strokes that leave small waves rippling over Alex. After a few of these, Alex flips over and treads water, watching him cut through the surface easily.

“You swim a lot?” Alex asks when they retreat to the shore for lunch, packed carefully into a wicker hamper by Rosa, as if they are travelling hundreds of miles instead of just the edge of the property.

“Every day,” Patrick says, peeling off the foil cap of a glass bottle of orange juice. “It keeps me young.”

“How old are you?” Alex asks. If his mother were here, she’d be scandalised by his rude question, but his mother isn’t here, so he just watches Patrick’s long fingers fold the bottle cap into a cube.

“Thirty four,” Patrick says, unashamed.

“When dad told me a friend of his from college was coming to stay for the summer, I assumed he’d be—“

“Older?” Patrick asks. “I met your father when he was my TA. Canadian Lit. We argued over my thesis and then he took me to an off campus bar and bought me a beer and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening ripping my argument apart, word by word.”

“That sounds like him,” Alex admits.

“Fifteen years later, he still spends most of our academic conversations trying to convince me he’s right,” Patrick says, smiling fondly.

Alex knows those conversations well. He picks up a bread roll and shreds it onto his napkin, dipping pieces in the small jar of homemade olive tapenade. “I always wanted to study literature when I was younger.”

“What changed?” Patrick asks.

“I don’t want to spend my whole college education arguing with him about every paper I write,” he admits.

Patrick hums, picks up an apricot. “I think that might be the case whatever you major in. Your father has a lot of opinions.” He bites into it, sticky juice running down his chin.

Alex snorts. “Don’t I know.”

They fall into a comfortable silence. Water droplets dry on Patrick’s skin slowly. His hair is slicked back. Alex steals glimpses as often as he feels like he can get away with. He always goes back to the sunflower tattoo.

-

Patrick has been in Sicily for two weeks. He’s starting to pick up the language, but when he needs to go into town to pick up some things, he requests that Alex go with him. For translation purposes.

They cycle side by side. Patrick talks about the book he’s writing. Alex listens to the cadence of his voice more than the words, and feels guilty about every time he answers a question he didn’t hear with a thoughtful noise. Luckily, Patrick seems happy to continue with his monologue, and Alex has gotten away with it.

Alex likes the little town ten minutes away from their villa. He likes the small stores that sell fresh produce. He likes the way the lady in the post office kisses his cheek and calls him _bambino_. He likes the secondhand bookstore, which smells like ancient paper and leather, and which welcomes him in like a hug.

Patrick has to mail a copy of his manuscript to his editor back in Chicago, so they go to the post office first, and then he insists on going to the gelateria next door, where they get espressos and cups of pistachio gelato, and Alex can enjoy a cigarette in the sunshine.

Patrick surprises him by stealing it for a drag, blowing the smoke straight up in the air. It exposes his throat, and Alex lets himself stare for a fraction of a second longer than he normally would. Their fingers brush when he hands it back, and the tiniest shock runs up his wrist to his elbow.

“Where to next?” he asks, pulling his hand back to pick up his cup.

“Is there somewhere I can buy flowers?” he asks. “Your mother has been such a wonderful host.”

Alex takes him to the florist, chats easily with Antonio, who owns it, and together they pick out some beautiful pink and purple flowers for Alex’s mother.

Alex has to drag him to the bookstore before they leave town, just to show him. Patrick grins, slow and beautiful, when he sees it, and ends up spending more than he means to on an old copy of Rossetti’s poetry.

“It’s a first edition!” he says, on their way out of the door, already rifling through it carefully. He flips to a page and starts reading out loud.

“My heart is like a singing bird   
                 Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;   
My heart is like an apple-tree   
                 Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;   
My heart is like a rainbow shell   
                 That paddles in a halcyon sea;   
My heart is gladder than all these   
                 Because my love is come to me.”

It echoes through Alex’s head the whole bike ride home.

-

Alex’s father is delighted by Patrick’s discovery. His mother is thrilled with the flowers. Alex escapes upstairs with a bottle of water to the spare room, where he’s sleeping until Patrick leaves.

He means to nap, but he starts thinking about that brief touch of fingertips. The long line of Patrick’s throat. The sunflower tattoo.

His hand is resting on his belly, pinky just tucked under the waistband of his shorts. It’s hot even for Sicily in July, and his skin is tacky and warm, even when he peels his shirt off and lies on cool sheets.

He runs his other hand through his sweat damp hair. Arousal is beginning to stir in his gut, and he slides his hand a little lower.

His door is open, just a crack. He shares a bathroom with Patrick, and that door is open too. It’s a dangerous game, but the condensation from the water bottle is leaking on his nightstand. He swipes his fingers through it and rubs it over his throat and upper chest, trying to cool down a little. He closes his eyes, imagines Patrick’s tongue trailing down the dip of his sternum. The fingers of his other hand have reached the tangle of dark hair at the base of his dick, and he wraps them around it, loose at first. He can hear laughter floating in from the open window; he has time.

He takes it slowly for the first little while, dragging the loose fit from base to tip, twisting a little, dragging back down, increasing the pressure. He’s not complicated, likes it slow and firm, so it doesn’t take long before he’s hard. When he swipes past the head, his hand collects the precome and smoothes it down over the shaft as makeshift lube. He’s lying half in a sunbeam, and he rolls over onto his belly to grind against the mattress a little, shoving his shorts down so he’s just in his underwear.

A door downstairs shuts, breaks his rhythm. He’s close, so he keeps going; it’s probably just Rosa. He’s hot all over, slick instead of sticky, and he can feel the tightness low in his stomach that means his orgasm is gathering.

The bathroom door that leads to Patrick’s room shuts, and Alex almost jumps out of his skin, hand tightening around his dick by accident. He breathes out as slowly and evenly as he can, trying to keep it together. He knows he’s not particularly loud when he jerks off, but the sound of skin on skin makes a distinctive noise.

The shower clanks to life, and he relaxes as much as he can. The pipes in this house are older than he is, and they’re noisier than any sound he can make. He starts moving again, and before he even hears the creak of someone climbing into the tub, he’s coming into his underwear, free hand spasming in the sheets.

He slumps flat onto the mattress, catching his breath. Patrick is on the other side of the door, naked. His dick twitches, fruitless, but he grinds anyway at the thought.

Part of him knows he probably shouldn’t have done that. He rolls onto his back, wiping his dirty hand on his abandoned shorts, and cracks the lid on the water bottle, swallowing half of it easily.

The sun is still streaming in from the window. Alex stretches, popping his back. He’s asleep before he hears the shower turn off.

-

Patrick wants to see the ocean.

“Ever since you mentioned it,” he says. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

“We’ll have to take the horses,” Alex says. “We’ll be gone all day.”

Patrick grins and holds up a picnic basket. “I already asked Rosa to make us lunch and dinner.”

Alex laughs, gentle, and gets up from where he’d been sprawled under an apple tree, writing in one of his sun bleached composition books.

-

The beach is perfect. It’s not too warm by the time they get there, and the breeze coming off the waves smells of salt and open air. Alex shucks off his shoes immediately after tying up the horses and digs his toes into the sand. Patrick is wearing a loose linen shirt and pants and looks like a college student, hair curling over the collar of his shirt. He’s holding the picnic basket and his Rossetti poetry, and as soon as Alex has taken the blanket out of Damien’s saddlebags and laid it in the sand, weighing it at the corners with rocks, he’s laid out like a cat, grinning up at Alex easily.

“How you imagined it?” Alex asks, nudging at him with his foot to make space.

“Pretty much,” Patrick says, and either Alex is imagining it, or Patrick is giving him a long once over.

“Wine?” Alex asks, opening the basket and pulling out the bottle.

“Now it’s perfect,” Patrick says, and takes a glass, winking.

They’ve set up in the shade at the edge of the beach, shrouded by trees, so Alex spends most of the day dozing or writing. Patrick goes to swim, comes back dripping wet and pink from the sun, insists Alex rub sunscreen into the places of his back he can’t reach.

They stay until the sun is setting, making their way through the wine and all the food Rosa packed for them.

Alex is propped up on his elbows watching the tide roll in.

“You make it out here often?” Patrick asks. He’s sitting cross legged by Alex’s hip, reading.

“Not really,” he says. “It’s nice out here, but there are nice places that are closer. I mostly like taking people out here, it’s, uh, nice to share, I guess?”

When he looks at Patrick, he’s looking back, amused. “So I’m not the first person you’ve brought out here,” he asks, looking at him from over his sunglasses.

“The first in a while,” Alex admits. “The first—“

He’s been in the heat all day. When Patrick asks, that’ll be his excuse.

“The first guy I’ve brought out here that’s as handsome as you,” he says, and then flops flat onto his back, eyes closed.

Patrick laughs. “Now I feel special,” he says, and then pauses. “Stop me if I’m wrong,” he says, quietly.

Patrick tastes like salt and wine and raspberries. It’s a strangely enticing combination.

Alex keeps his eyes closed, afraid that if he opens them, it will all have been a trick; he got too hot in the sun and he’s imagining things. But then Patrick’s hand is on his jaw, thumb nudged up behind his ear, and the kiss deepens. Alex parts his lips and tilts his head into it.

Alex’s shirt is already hanging off him, and Patrick takes full advantage, dragging a surprisingly calloused hand down his ribcage, making him shudder as blunt nails catch on his skin. He makes a sound into Patrick’s mouth, and feels him smile.

“Not wrong, then,” he murmurs, moving to kiss the hinge of his jaw, the hollow of his throat.

Alex doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he shakes his head. He still hasn’t opened his eyes.

Patrick’s hand has settled by his hip, fingers teasing the waistband of his shorts. Alex feels spread out, like a butterfly pinned to a board, hot from the hot and from Patrick’s touch.

“You’ve done this before?” Patrick asks, mouthing at his collarbone wetly.

“Yes,” Alex lies.

Patrick smiles again, sharp, and slides his hand into Alex’s shorts.

It’s over quickly. Patrick has long fingers and knows exactly what he’s doing with them. He has Alex arching his back and writhing under his touch, making small, desperate sounds that Patrick swallows easily with his mouth.

His orgasm is a strangely drawn out affair. It arrives quickly, but Patrick is relentless, jerking him through it, thumb rubbing harshly at his frenulum until he’s shaking with over sensitisation.

“Shit,” he says, when he can breathe again. It comes out hoarse, wobbly. Patrick is propped up above him, and when Alex finally, finally opens his eyes, he’s looking down at him with mild concern. His hair is falling into his eyes. It takes a decade off him. Alex thinks suddenly of Patrick his age, with hair always in his face, clear, unlined skin. His eyes somehow bigger and greener than they are now.

“You okay?” Patrick asks. He thumbs at Alex’s temple, where a tear is slowly trickling towards his hairline.

Alex nods. “Yeah— Yeah, it was just— a lot.”

“Too much?”

Alex shakes his head. Never. Patrick smiles again, worry evaporating like a snap of the fingers. “Good,” he says, then, “You’re beautiful like this, you know?”

Alex is coming back down to earth. He’s aware of his skinny torso, awkward limbs. The acne dusted along the tops of his shoulders and his cheekbones. The slight crookedness of his front teeth. Even like this, debauched and half undressed, he can’t help but feel lesser next to Patrick, so. He says nothing. Ducks his gaze.

Patrick leans in to kiss him again, and then sits back up, rescues his book from where he’d placed it in the sand.

“Perhaps some languid summer day,  
When drowsy birds sing less and less,   
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,   
If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud,   
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,   
Perhaps my secret I may say,   
Or you may guess.”

His voice is clear, confident. Alex imagines it carrying on the wind, the waves, all the way across the ocean.

“Come on,” Patrick says, closing the book and putting it in his bag. “We should head home before the sun completely sets.”

-

Alex’s life turns into a series of numbers. Counting down the days since Patrick last touched him. Calculating how long they have to stay downstairs with his parents until they can escape upstairs. How long they can stay in the orchard, kissing lazily against Alex’s favourite apple tree, the one where he carved his initials last summer, with a space for someone else underneath them.

How many orgasms Patrick can coax out of him in one night. The number of seconds Alex can wait, watching Patrick undress slowly, across the room, like a film Alex is watching, before he’ll let himself be touched.

The days on the calendar slowly ticking away until Patrick must leave.

-

“What was his name?”

They’re by the pool outside the house. It’s not big enough for laps, so Alex is just floating on his back while Patrick reads under the shade of a tree. His sunflower tattoo is peeking out from where his shorts have slipped down, shirt has ridden up.

“Matthew,” he says, after a pause.

“What happened?”

“He died,” Patrick says. “He got sick, and—“ He trails off.

Alex lapses into silence.

“He was a good person,” Patrick says. “You’d have liked him. He played the violin and hated Hemingway. He always wanted to visit Italy.”

A pause. Patrick turns a page in his book.

_“When I am dead, my dearest,_   
_Sing no sad songs for me;_   
_Plant thou no roses at my head,_   
_Nor shady cypress tree:_   
_Be the green grass above me_   
_With showers and dewdrops wet;_   
_And if thou wilt, remember,_   
_And if thou wilt, forget.”_

-

Alex’s parents have gone into town for the day. Rosa has the day off.  Alex is fucking Patrick for the first time.

Patrick has his hands on the desk underneath the open bay window in his room. His legs are a little spread, his pelvis tilted so his ass lifts a little. Alex finds him like this and has to stop in the doorway to appreciate the curve of his ass, the muscles in his back.

Alex has never fucked anyone before. Not like this. He opens Patrick up at what must be an agonisingly slow rate, but Patrick stays still and quiet, and all he says is “We have all day,” when Alex apologises.

He has lube all over his hands and Patrick’s thighs when he’s done, sticky and shiny and slick. He doesn’t know how he’s actually going to slide into him, though, can’t fathom how this is going to feel good for Patrick.

The first push feels as slow as the movement of clouds across the sky. The head eases past the ring of muscle and he feels Patrick’s muscles in the small of his back tense from where he’s steadying himself. Alex has to bite his tongue to keep from apologising again.

By the time his pelvis is slotted against Patrick’s ass, Alex can’t remember what it’s like _not_ to be inside Patrick. It’s hot and tight and Alex feels his chest tighten. He feels like his dick is made of exposed nerve endings. If he moves even a fraction of a millimetre, he’s going to come.

He rests his forehead between Patrick’s shoulder blades and tries to remember how to breathe.

Patrick is like a statue. Alex can feel his shallow breaths, but beyond that, there’s nothing but the infrequent clenching of muscles around Alex’s dick.

His first thrust is life-changing. It’s like Patrick comes to life, back arching, head thrown back. His nails scrape against the already scratched varnish on the desk. Alex doesn’t know how he’s going to keep this up. He’s already wound tight enough to snap if anyone even touches him, and Alex is draped over him like a coat.

His second thrust makes Patrick cry out, a shuddery sound that makes Alex wonder if that’s what he sounds like when Patrick touches him.

“Good job we’re alone,” he says, a weak attempt at a joke. Patrick huffs out a laugh.

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s why we waited until today.”

Alex’s third thrust becomes a fourth, and a fifth, until something clicks, and he finds someone approaching a rhythm. It’s just like fucking a girl now, quick snaps of his hips reducing Patrick down to his base thoughts and feelings, no longer Patrick Sharp, professor, author, expert, but just Patrick, naked and exposed, just for Alex.

They come together, Patrick a fraction of a second before, the sharp contraction of muscles forcing Alex over the edge with him. Alex doesn’t know how Patrick manages to stay standing, elbows locked as Alex collapses over his back, still sheathed in him.

They stay like that, joined together from the top of Patrick’s spine to the bottom. “I could stay in this moment forever,” Patrick says. Alex kisses his shoulder in response.

Neither of them mention the fact that tomorrow Patrick flies home to Chicago.

-

They end up in Patrick’s— Alex’s bed, doors wedged shut. Patrick lies on his back with Alex’s cheek on his chest, and he cards through his hair carefully.

Alex doesn’t realise he’s crying until he feels the damp on Patrick’s chest.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, scrubs at his face, tries to pull away. Patrick’s arm around his waist is like a steel bar. When he looks up, Patrick’s eyes are shiny with unshed tears. He takes a slow, careful breath, and leans down to kiss Alex.

“Stay,” Alex says, horribly aware of how young he sounds, like a child who doesn’t understand. Like he’s pleading for something he knows Patrick can’t give him.

“I wish I could,” Patrick says, whisper quiet, and kisses him again, and again, until they’re twined together and he’s wringing a sobbing orgasm out of Alex. They’re both breathless when they slow to a halt, sheets tangled around them, covered in sweat. Alex feels hollow when Patrick pulls out of him, and he whimpers, trying to push back against his leaving. Patrick shushes him, pushes a couple of fingers into him, and they lie like that, Alex half-full and half-empty.

Alex falls asleep first, with Patrick’s fingers still in him.

-

He wakes up to a cold bed even though the dawn sun shines in through the curtains they didn’t draw last night. Patrick’s suitcase is gone.

There is a note on the table.

_“Remember me when I am gone away,_   
_Gone far away into the silent land;_   
_When you can no more hold me by the hand,_   
_Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.”_

-

 

 

 

 

 

_four years later_

Chicago is beautiful in the opposite way that Sicily is. It feels a world away from Erie, the small town he went to for college, even though realistically it’s just across the lake.

Alex has a duffel bag in one hand and a yellow piece of paper with a Christina Rossetti poem written on it.

On the underside is an office number.

Alex is standing in front of a door with frosted glass.

_Dr Patrick Sharp_

_Professor of Canadian Literature_

Alex is ninety minutes off the plane. He smells like recycled air, and he’s wearing sweatpants and a tank top. There are bags under his eyes, deep purple. They make him look older, if nothing else.

He takes a breath, and knocks on the door.


End file.
